Hypervelocity impact on honeycomb structure reinforced with bi-layer ceramic/aluminum facesheets used for spacecraft shielding

In this paper, the honeycomb sandwich panel (HSP) reinforced with bi-layer Ceramic (B4C)/Aluminum (Al7075-T6) facesheets is proposed to be used as a shield for spacecraft against meteoroid orbital debris. A modeling strategy based on Lagrange Finite Element-Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (FEM-SPH) coupled method to predict the damage characteristics and the hole morphology is presented for the proposed shielding subjected to hypervelocity impact. The results show good agreement with the experimental data. Based on this investigation, significant improvement in resistance capacities is obtained using the bi-layer B4C/Al7075-T6 facesheets compared to monolayer concepts for HSP.

Automated summary

The study focuses on using bi-layer Ceramic/Aluminum facesheets for honeycomb sandwich panels as shield for spacecraft, and proposes a modeling strategy for predicting damage characteristics. The results indicate a significant improvement in resistance capacities with bi-layer facesheets compared to monolayer concepts.